


Corollary

by bubblewrapstargirl



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Carl is unable to assimilate, Carl is unstable, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sad Carl Grimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-04 16:10:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10282823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: For this prompthere on tumblr.Carl can't cope in a changed world, of laws and civility. He knows just where to turn.





	1. Chapter 1

The sweat trickles down Carl’s neck, curling the ends of his hair and collecting in the brim of his hat. His fingers twitch, restless for the shape of his Beretta, and his left arm itches at the elbow from a bug bite. He swims and swims through the clotted summer air, skin sticky with heat, head muggy from lack of water. He’s been in the sun too long, today.

He trudges along the perimeter, every day, his rucksack loose against his back, dangling from one shoulder. The others don't know why he does this for hours: Walkers are all but extinct now. Since the vaccine, those that die don't turn, and neither do those bitten.

It took years to get a system of wide communication going, and it's by no means inclusive of what was once the USA. But five States have clubbed together now, drawing out territories and writing up trade treaties. They call themselves the Southern Surviving States, in letters and radio broadcasts, though everyone says “Triple S” when talking amongst themselves. 

The Triple S. What a joke. Carl ignores talk of the treaties mainly, though he can't avoid the conclusions. There was a blanket statement pardoning all actions undertaken during their “time of trial”. But there are laws again now, basic compared to what little Carl remembers from before. The rules are simple, but there is enforcement for the first time in years, and he's been at the wrong edge of judgement more than once.

There are no real prisons to encase people in anymore. Alexandria has a single cell, and its mainly used as a holding place before a trial. Carl’s been incarcerated there three times. Labour is the punishment now, and the restriction of luxury goods like cigarettes and alcohol. Carl doesn't drink; he never got the taste for it. Even now, in their safer world, it seems like a worthless risk. Just because the dead stay dead again, it doesn't mean they are without enemies.

He can't clamp down on the need to defend his family, savagely, from any perceived threat. A man tried to intimidate him into handing over some of his rations once, and Carl forgot, completely, that there were consequences now. He just reacted. He smashed a glass against the man’s balding head, kneed him in the guts and stomped on his fingers, breaking several, before he was dragged away.

Another time, a couple broke into their house, scavenging, and Carl shot them both, one in the arm and one in the leg. Rick took away his gun after that. In the Triple S, the penalty for murder is death.

Today he walks and walks until he reaches the barbed wire fence. Carl stares out at the endless green plains and knows there is nothing left behind for him, in the new world.

His shirt clings to his back, and an itch all along his neck tells him he’s being watched. No points for guessing who. Here, at the westernmost edge of their territory, he can just about see the tiny farmhouse, that Negan claimed as his own when they let him out of the cell. A white speck on the horizon.

It marks the beginning of the lawless lands, the regions still without rules, free and brutal. Negan has to grow his own food, trade with the occasional drifter for anything else. Unless he accepts the authority of the Triple S, he isn't welcome in their territory or allowed to seek their assistance. 

Carl shivers in the blazing sunlight, the memory of those hard, seductive eyes roving all over him. Cruel and amused, constantly teasing the edge of hysteria. Negan was always one laughing fit away from insanity.

He doesn't know why he does it. Perhaps it's the thought of one more afternoon spent shucking vegetables, making small talk about the progress of the farms, as though Carl doesn't long to stick his wicked little knife into the flesh of anyone who insults him. As though Carl didn't want to choke the boy who pushed Judith and made her cry, until Carl felt his spine snap.

He can't pretend to be happy, indulging in the collective fiction most have adopted, where if they scrub hard enough, they can erase everything that happened.

Daryl and Carol left months ago. Just upped and walked out into the lawless lands, with few supplies, no car, no guns. Carl doesn't doubt for a second they're safe somewhere together, fighting on.

Suddenly, it seems like the only rational choice. He vaults over the fence, wading through the tall grasses in the late afternoon sun. His fingers trail through the unfettered vegetation, enjoying the tickling sensation against the palms of his hands.

The click of a gun’s safety doesn't surprise him when he reaches the little white-washed brick cottage. That Negan takes one look at him and lowers his rifle does. As though it's a given, that Carl isn't here to tear up their ceasefire. The baseball bat is nowhere to be seen. 

Carl vowed to kill him, more than once, but Negan looks at him now, and he just knows. He sees that Carl has been drowning in the new world, struggling for buoyancy against the tide of spreading civility.

“I couldn't take it anymore.” Carl licks his cracked, dried lips. “Make-believing it could ever be like it was.”

For a while the silence almost convinces Carl he will be turned away. But Negan jerks his head once, stepping aside to let him in.

There will be days when Carl wakes in a cold sweat and the sight of Negan’s concerned face makes him want to put the man’s eyes out. When they will argue, long and loud, and Carl will beat his fists against Negan’s chest until he pants in exhaustion. When they will fuck, brutally rough, leaving scratches and bruises and bites that Carl will press his fingers against, the sting reminding him that he is alive. 

Others will come for what little they have and Carl won't be able to stop at broken bones. Blood will be hot and thick against his clammy skin. Even Negan will look a little peaked when Carl just sits back on his heels and laughs and laughs.

Rick will come for him and try to drag him back by his arms and hair, but Carl will scream and scream and eventually Rick will let him go.

They will carve out their spot and relinquish their grip on the past. So seldom will they speak of before, it will be almost as if there never was any life but the one they share now.

Here in the present, Carl willingly steps into the cool dark, blessed by the feel of it settling across his sun-drenched skin. He doesn't look back.


	2. Chapter 2

There's a Walker clawing at the pen where they keep the chickens. Carl should have fed and released them from their lop-sided DIY coop, to scratch round the increasingly parched and crispy soil, hours ago. But the mornings are getting colder, the sun sluggish in its crawl to mid-sky, and Carl couldn't bring himself to roll out of bed today. He usually wakes up when Negan leaves their blanket cocoon, and prepares to vacate it also.

Today, he just rolled over with a grumble when the older man had let the cold air in with his movements. When Negan tried to offer him coffee, Carl told him to fuck off and buried himself in their covers, promptly falling back to sleep.

He woke up several hours later, to Negan whistling while he worked out front, in their dirt yard. Carl had scrambled to get to his chores; pulling lumpy, mismatched hand-knitted socks over bare feet, throwing a sloppy sweater of Negan’s over his sleeping shirt. Bare bottomed, and not bothering with trousers or underwear of any sort, because it's still plenty warm out in the sun, and Carl has no shame.

There’s a pile of grimy, soil-encrusted vegetables sitting on their back porch. Waiting to be washed. Carl wastes no time in collecting them to do just that, jamming his hat on more firmly, when it starts to tip, as he collects armfuls.

Their farm has a little well of its own, and they collect water every few days. But there’s enough inside already, for Carl to prepare and throw together a stew, leaving it on a low boil.

Then he remembers the no-doubt starving chickens, that Negan never feeds. No matter that they live off corn, which they have an overabundance of, and is Negan’s department. He’ll peel the corn and fill a bucket, but stops short of depositing the bounty himself. It’s his passive aggressive way of reminding Carl he hadn't wanted them in the first place.

He'd grumbled endlessly when Carl traded whiskey for five tiny cheeping chicks. But Carl had no use for the alcohol, save for a painkiller or to flush out wounds, and they had vodka for that. Funny how Negan stopped complaining once they had a regular supply of eggs.

The chickens are still Carl's responsibility though. So he pulls rubber boots on over his ugly socks and trudges out to the wired enclosure, carrying his bucket of corn. The familiar rasping growl halts his feet before his brain even registers what his eyes can see. It's been so long, years in fact, that Can had almost forgotten the bone-deep revulsion in his stomach at the sight of a rotted, shambling corpse.

For several long heartbeats, Carl can only stare in disbelief. It doesn't matter that a bite can no longer turn him. Carl automatically drops the bucket, fumbling at his bare hips for phantom belt-loops and the knife that no longer lives there. He hasn't had a gun since he left Alexandria. For the first time in years Carl is defenseless. Alone.

He snaps out of his shock when the Walker reacts to the noise, turning toward Carl and jolting toward the unprotected prey in front of it. Carl turns and sprints to their pile of spare tools, grabbing the first thing his hand reaches, a rake, and swinging it in a wide arc to smack the Walker down. It impacts with the side of the Walker’s head, caving in half of it’s skull with one hearty blow. The nightmare is knocked off its feet, but still advancing, rotted limbs reaching out, until Carl brings the rake down, again and again.

Black blood and brain matter splattering across his sweater and throat. Carl feels speckles hit his face and is thrown, lurching and nauseous, back into his teen years. How long has it been since he killed anything bigger than a mosquito? Funny, how you lose the familiarity of it, he thinks, divorced from the world for a long series of detached minutes.

Then, somehow, he's kneeling in the dirt and bellowing out Negan’s name, over and over. Until the man himself has raced around to him, still carrying the axe he was using to chop firewood out of the branches they cut down last week. For a while, neither man can do anything but stare in disbelief at the horror that has resurged, unannounced, into their little pocket of life.

Then, wordlessly, they scramble up onto the roof. They scan the horizon in every direction with binoculars, but there is nothing to see. All is silent and still, save for Carl’s poor, frantic chickens. The bucket rolled when he dropped it, spilling out its golden treasure all along the dusty brown earth.

Carl shimmies down off the roof, gathers what he can back into the blue tub, and upends it into the pen. He ignores Negan's worried orders to stay beside him, then to stop fucking around and go inside. Negan corners him then, dragging him by the sleeve of one elbow, till he takes in the gore smeared all across Carl’s sweater and begins yanking it off in disgust.

“You naked under this?” Negan growls, when the rough motions pull up the loose cotton shirt he sleeps in, exposing the tops of his thighs.

Carl shrugs, ‘duh’ conveyed in his every exaggerated movement.

“Christ, boy, what if we’d had to run?” he insists, pushing Carl toward their home with every step.

Carl remains supremely indifferent. They keep a bag of spare clothes and a few essential supplies in their shitty truck, for emergencies. And the outer border of Alexandria isn't that far, on foot.

“Reckless little fuck.” Negan mutters, slamming Carl against the side of the one-storey farmhouse, sliding calloused fingers up the meat of Carl’s thighs. “Getting me invested and shit. Turn up here and waltz your way in like it's all just swell, givin’ me expectations...”

Carl tunes out the increasingly vague ramblings, spreading his legs and letting the other man reassure himself they're both still here. One hand dips between Carl’s legs, searching for the place he’s still open, a little wet, even, from the night before. Negan lifts one of Carl's knees, wrapping one skinny leg around his strong waist. Farming has bulked him up a bit. Negan was always on the wirey side, before.

Carl lets out as little sigh of relief, when Negan finally presses his fingers inside. It's dryer than usual, a little more rough than he’s used to. Negan likes to eat him out, enjoys listening to Carl wail in helpless delight. He’s used to being wide open and wet by this point, but the twinge of pain brings him back here, now. Stops his head from floating off somewhere above.

Carl moans, low and loud, when Negan finds that spot and abuses it, throwing back his head and dislodging his hat. They’re scrambling to get better situated before it even hits the floor. Negan fumbles with the buttons on his jeans, while Carl rips off his own shirt.

It's short work before they're entangled; Carl practically launching himself into Negan’s arms, wrapping both legs round him now, his back crowded against the outer wall, protected from the sun by the creaky verandah. Negan plunders inside him, thick and long, no finesse or rhythm, just fast and brutal. Carl digs his heels into the small of Negan’s back, raking his hands through salt and pepper hair. Struggling to catch his breath with every deep thrust into his tender hole.

Carl rocks his hips with the little leverage he can find. Shocked at how good it feels, the lack of prep and hard, penetrating jabs that jolt his whole body upwards, jiggling his ass as Negan's heavy balls slap against his smooth skin.

Carl clenches down on that thick cock as though it's the only reality he knows, milking the other man until his balls give up their seed. Negan comes with a roar, biting down on the flesh of Carl's shoulder and the sting is enough to jolt him into his own orgasm. They collapse, panting, against the sagging frame of their house, Negan still mumbling against Carl's sweat-slick skin.

Carl tilts his head to take in the sky, running soothing hands through Negan’s grimey hair, gentling aches he no doubt caused during their rough fuck, and sees nothing but endless blue.


	3. Chapter 3

Negan is like a furnace, all along the back of Carl's trunk and thighs. Each time he shifts, letting cold air into their tiny, cramped cocoon of a bed, Carl punishes him with a swift kick to the thighs. He has no idea how Negan survived the winter in here. Their humble home is sturdy enough to survive the weather, but ramshackle as hell, the idea of insulation laughable. 

 

Lovely and cool in the blazing summer it may be, with thick shutters to keep the sun out. But as the nights grow longer, the chill creeps in, insidiously. They spend longer and longer curled under every blanket they own. Sharing clouds of visible breath, icy noses tucked into bony chests. The roaring fire blazes merrily in the hearth, their sole source of light and heat, doubling as life-sustainer and replacement for television. Their eyes are drawn to the flickering flame like a moth to a bulb; desperately seduced by the danger.

 

Negan whispers nothing of consequence into the waves of Carl's long hair, too fond of his own voice. Carl barely listens, instead allowing himself to be lulled into pre-sleep, by the rhythmic cadence of his lover’s speech.

 

“This is why peasants had so many brats, back in the day.” Negan informs him, always talkative, attentive, even when frozen. “No entertainment, cold as fuck. Sex generates heat, gives them something worthwhile to look forward to. Boom! Squalling babes.”

 

Negan finds ‘teachable moments’ wherever he can. Full of useless historical titbits, Carl wonders why he bothers to impart this broad knowledge now, rather than at a school. They’ve opened several in the Triple S already. 

 

Naively, he asked once. Unsure whether he wanted an answer, or just to indulge in Negan’s reaction. Neither aspect gave him the satisfaction he craved. Negan had laughed so hard he choked on his own spit, and had to clear his throat with a series of hacking coughs. 

 

Equal parts disgusted and terrified, it was the first time Carl seriously considered what he'd do out here if Negan upped and died on him. When, he should say, because Negan was pushing middle age when they met, and the Apocalypse years haven't been kind to anyone. Life expectancy isn't exactly long in the Triple S, let alone out here in the flawless, as they have taken to calling it, these past few months.

 

(Carl quite likes the sound of ‘free, liberated lands without law’ which Negan insisted was ‘too much of a goddamn mouthful’. Carl figured the abbreviation FLLWL could be pronounced ‘flawl’. Combined with the common name for the wider USA in the Triple S: ‘the lawless lands’, flawless seemed a good halfway point.) Carl appreciates the underlying meaning.The irony of the unprotected, wild territories he considered superior to the so called ‘civilised’ world.  This is their land, of which they have seized dominion; their own private empire to build or destroy.

  
Carl is brought back to reality by the brush of Negan’s lips and stubbled chin against his jaw, accompanied the barest scrape of teeth. Carl shivers. The familiar feel of chapped, cold lips on his bare, smooth skin. He shook so hard it was nearly a flinch, and moaned in displeasure, before attempting to wiggle out of range. But Negan held him fast, with arms like steel bands wrapped around his torso.

 

“Too fucking cold,” Carl complained, but it went unheeded. The involuntary flinch made him lower his chin so their mouths were within kissing distance. Naturally, Negan took full advantage. He tilted Carl's face toward him and seized his lips in a searing kiss. Negan murmured something against Carl’s lips as he began kissing him in earnest, but it was muffled and lost. Carl would only have ignored it anyway, too busy digging his clawed hands into Negan's scalp, centring the kiss where he preferred it, resigned.

 

One day, Negan will die. 

 

Carl will be devoid of human company, but he won't be completely alone. And there's a whole wide world out there. Who knows what kind of mischief he could get up to, on his travels? There is so much left to explore. 

 

But right now, he revels in the world they have built for themselves: misanthropic, lonely and quiet, unglamorous but sustainable. Stable, and free. It is more than he could have hoped for; a sweet child born to a brutal undead world. 

  
What they have is more than enough. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> Corollaries; by-products, effects, outcomes, repercussions. Consequences.


End file.
